Mali confronted in its own territory to the terrorist groups of Al Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (Aqmi), controled by the Algerian jihadists, takes it out on the Polisario. Taking into consideration the balance of forces, Bamako, instead of entering directly in confrontation with Algeria hosting the HQ of the Sahrawi movement for independence, has preferred to set its heart on the Polisario leadership. The Malian authorities accuse openly the Polisario Sahrawis of using these last time and in a recurrent manner, the Malian territory to settle their accounts with AQMI men and drug traffickers who are very active in the Sahel band, namely in the North of Mali, difficult to be controlled by the local army. The Algerian security services who did not admit the downs undergone following the kidnapping on their own territory, of two Spanish and one Italian humanitarian workers, on the last 23rd October in the highly controlled camp of Hassi Rabouni, near Tindouf, brought up some Polisario elements to try to release the three hostages by entering them in the Malian territory.
Following this affair, the most important leaders of the Algerian army start falling, with the dismissal, the beginning of this week, of General Abdelkader Kherfi, alias Ahmed, who was replaced by General Athmane Tartag, alias Bachir, at the head of the Interior Security Department (DSI). The latter was working in the dreadful Security and Intelligence Department (DRS), which is the real question master in the Algerian powerful circles.
The DSI, led during many years by the late Major General Smain Lamari, is one of the most important and most strategic structures of the DRS. The most discreet patron of the DRS, Major General Mohamed Lamine Mediène, alias Tawfik, has chosen general Tartag whom he considers as being a man of practical experience in the field of terrorism, on the opposite of his predecessor whose profile did not suit the function he was assuming. A Western diplomat still at his post in Algiers, believes that it concerns rather a sanction against general Kherfi to whom Tewfik attributes directly the responsibility of the kidnapping the three Europeans in the Polisario camps in Tindouf. A kidnapping which was perceived as a real slap for the Polisario front, the national army and the other Algerian security services.
Besides, the nominations of these last days, of the Algerian jihadist Abou AL Ghama, of his real name Makhloufi Nabil, “Emir of the Sahara” in replacement of his compatriot Yahia Jwadi, has accelerated the changes that have already happened or those planned for the high command posts in the Algerian security services.
Abou Al Ghama was entrusted in last November, by the Emir of Aqmi, Abdelmalik Droukdal , with the mission consisting of following up the active katibas in the Sahara, called also “zone 9”, reporting to his authority in the North of Mali, so as to give some more boost to their actions. The new emir of the Sahara has inaugurated his action, with the two kidnappings, on the last 24th and 25th November, of five Western people in the North of Mali. The terrorism/kidnapping combination is a big affair which has not yet revealed all its secrets.
